View full sizeAlysha Beck/The Oregonian Georgia Kirkpatrick prepares to launch her retail line for the first time Saturday at a trunk show in Tiffanee Bean's (right) Mabel & Zora boutique, 748 N.W. 11th Ave., Portland. Kirkpatrick's clothing is inspired by the indigenous Peruvian patterns her grandmother Silvia designed more than 60 years ago.

For Georgia Kirkpatrick, one of the best parts of launching a clothing line is that she can share the story of her innovating grandmother, whose inspiration and artistry are woven into each dress, coat and blouse.

And yet it's not only her grandmother's spirit that drives Kirkpatrick. The 26-year-old, raised in West Linn, also has drawn on her mother's deep love of nature and her work to protect it, values that led Kirkpatrick to team with the small farmers and artisans in Peru who grow and weave the organic cotton used in her fabrics.

She recalls how at 21 she first brought up the idea of relaunching the clothing and textiles business that her grandmother, Silvia Lawson, founded in Peru in the late 1950s while raising two toddlers. The label, "Silvania," had grown into a booming brand as recognizable to Peruvians as Pendleton Woolen Mills is to generations of Oregonians.

View full sizeGeorgia KirkpatrickGeorgia Kirkpatrick brought back to life her grandmother's "ÂSilvania"ÂÂ clothing company that was founded in 1958. Kirkpatrick's also using her grandmother's logo in the same slanty font many Peruvians easily recognize.

Kirkpatrick can't recall exactly what she said to her grandmother, or how the woman felt about it. She must have been pleased, Kirkpatrick figures, even though the 79-year-old would have been keenly aware of how the dreams of such a young girl with so many opportunities could change.

"I was just toying with the idea," said Kirkpatrick, who at the time was completing a biology degree at Reed College, yet still loved to cut pictures out of Vogue magazine. "It was so unclear to me at the time."

Lawson's historyLawson herself hadn't as many options.

With her family labeled "enemy aliens" after immigrating to Brazil from Germany when World War II broke out, she was able to attend school only through the age of 15, Kirkpatrick said. At 20, Lawson was allowed to leave Brazil to attend Skidmore College, a choice she made after spotting an ad in an old Vogue magazine for the art school in upstate New York.

During Lawson's junior year of art and silkscreen studies, she met an anthropologist and writer who'd come to speak about his upcoming expedition to the Incan highways of Peru. Intrigued, Silvia shared with him her own stories of Brazil and of her relatives living in Peru. The two courted as Silvia finished her senior year, and after graduation in 1951, they were married and set off for Lima.

Lawson, who served as the expedition's artist and cartographer, was fascinated by the art of indigenous tribes, stone carvings she saw at archaeological sites and the Nazca Lines, rocks stacked in the shapes of various animals that can be seen only from the sky. Afterward, Kirkpatrick says, Lawson set up a silk-screening shop while her husband wrote.

In 1956, she gave birth to a daughter, Adriana; two years later, Kirkpatrick's mother, Bettina, followed. That was the same year Lawson launched Silvania Prints, clothing and fabric she designed on the famously soft Pima cotton grown in the country.

Lawson and her husband divorced in 1961, yet her business continued to grow. She crafted pillowcases, scarves, towels, toiletry and cigarette cases. Many of the hotels and restaurants in Lima used her tablecloths and curtains, Kirkpatrick says.

At its height, in 1995, Silvia operated three stores, and although her designs were sold only in Peru, the American travel guide Fodor's featured a write-up of the brand.

View full sizeGeorgia KirkpatrickGeorgia Kirkpatrick, then 18, sits with her grandmother, Silvia Lawson, 76, at the home in Lima, Peru, where Kirkpatrick's mother was raised. Kirkpatrick says a bonus to relaunching her grandmother's brand is getting to share so many stories about her grandmother. At the same time, she says, she gets to hear stories about others' inspirational grandmothers.

Kirkpatrick's history Kirkpatrick grew up traveling around the world to see her grandmother, as well the natural wonders that so intrigued her parents. At 8, she watched volcanoes erupt at night in Costa Rica. At 12, she swam with sea lions off the Galapagos.

"It was hard not to fall in love with nature," said Kirkpatrick. "I've loved fashion since I was a teen, but I felt that professionally I had to work in the social area."

That was the influence of her parents, Brian Fitzpatrick and Bettina von Hagen, both of whom are active with social issues. Her mother is the chief executive of Ecotrust Forest Management Inc., a subsidiary of Portland-based Ecotrust, that aims to manage forestlands for financial, ecological and social gains.

In 2001, Lawson was diagnosed with cervical cancer and, though she recovered, she was weakened by the radiation treatments. Unable to operate Silvania to her standards, Silvia decided to close her business in 2003, and Kirkpatrick, then 17, spent a week there helping out.

"It broke my heart, I loved her fabrics so much," says Kirkpatrick, who grew up cherishing the many Silvania dresses in her closet.

After graduating from high school, Kirkpatrick spent a year traveling Peru. During the three months she lived with her grandmother, the pair cooked, visited art galleries in Lima and talked extensively.

"They were adult conversations," she says. "We grew to have an adult relationship, not just as a grandmother and grandchild. She became a very good friend."

The friendship grew as Kirkpatrick spent the next two years at the University of Edinburgh, traveling to Sussex on many weekends for short holidays. She eventually transferred to Reed in Southeast Portland.

View full sizeGeorgia KirkpatrickGeorgia Kirkpatrick has a collection of the fabric that her grandmother designed and silkscreened for the company she launched in 1958.

In 2005, Lawson was diagnosed with a rare and terminal form of palsy. She died in 2007, a year before Kirkpatrick earned her biology degree.

"That's when everything really gelled. I knew I wanted to do this," Kirkpatrick says. "Right after she died I thought of all the questions I wanted to ask her."

Learning the business In her final year at Reed, Kirkpatrick spent any extra time studying sustainable cotton farming. After graduating in 2008, she spent six months in Peru researching how she could develop an organic line, then wrangled herself into an internship with Textile Exchange, a nonprofit that works to create more environmentally friendly fabrics.

Though many companies, including Oregon-based Hanna Andersson, buy organic cotton in Peru, Kirkpatrick said, it's usually produced exclusively and not sold to others. So Kirkpatrick set about finding her own suppliers.

She found artisans in Peru who provided her dye to her grandmother, and she became enamored of a group of women who do authentic embroidery similar to that that graced her grandmother's designs. (In fact, 10 percent of her profits will go to support the women's sewing group.)

At times, she says, she feels a little guided by her grandmother; other times, more dressed down.

She described tweaking a design of her grandmother's featuring a line of llamas. Kirkpatrick preferred to use the animals in a polka dot pattern. "Yeah, I could hear her yelling," she jokes. Kirkpatrick returned from Peru in 2009 and set to work crafting a fashion master's degree of sorts, with a year's worth of sewing, drawing and design classes at the Portland Art Institute, as well as silk-screening classes at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

With guidance from her parents, who also provided her the financial backing, Kirkpatrick launched Silvania in 2010. By spring 2011, she'd designed her first collection, updating all of her grandmother's images with more contemporary colors.

Silvania will be hanging on the racks this week at local boutiques Shop Adorn and Silkwood, as well as stores in San Francisco and New York. Kirkpatrick hopes to remain exclusively in boutiques over the next five years, though expanding into Europe, China and Japan. If all goes well, she says, she'd eventually like to see her clothing in department stores and online.

She'll bring Silvania clothing back to Peru next year and has heard from some of her grandmother's old customers, who found Kirkpatrick's Silvania designs online.

"It's fabulous finding all of these connections to her," she said. "It's so neat for her to come back to me in that way." -- Laura Gunderson